


Still As Death

by TheLibraryWitch



Series: I'm not Calling You a Liar (Just Don't Lie to Me) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A novel, Family Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lack of Communication, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, POV Thor (Marvel), Thor and Loki do not know how to talk to each other, and not graphic, but just to be safe, except only very vaguely, he is pretending he does'nt but um, lots of talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 09:46:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16658855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLibraryWitch/pseuds/TheLibraryWitch
Summary: Thor and Loki try to start talking about things. This goes about as well as you would expect.





	Still As Death

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [when I fall asleep / my hands leave me](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/433481) by Lise. 



> Okay so this is not actually a prompt fill. Its what would happen in the aftermath, if this prompt is assumed to have happened in the past 
> 
> \-----
> 
> ( https://portraitoftheoddity.tumblr.com/post/175713575639 )
> 
> Loki constantly fidgets, fiddling with his hands for comfort; a habit he picked up from Frigga.
> 
> Thanos notices this, when Loki is his captive. Notices the tell; the weakness. 
> 
> He has Corvus break Loki’s hands. 
> 
> (His instruments, his children, will be forged stronger.)
> 
> \-----

For as long as Thor could possibly remember, Loki had been moving.

 

He seemed to be dancing to music somewhere far away, tapping his feet to a rhythm nobody could hear.

 

 

Loki would stand on his toes, poised and alert, and somehow even at his most relaxed he managed to look on the verge of running, of taking of faster than one could blink and running jumping twisting away into the distance.

 

 

Tap tap tap -

 

Fingers drumming on a crystal glass at breakfast.

 

Fidgety.

 

Hair twirled for hours until it stuck out at odd angles.

 

 

Enthusiastic waving of arms, flighty fingers and little hops and twirls as he explained a spell discovered in a dusty tome.

 

 

Bubbly, crystal laughter as he swung, leapt, and twisted down from the top branches of a tree, after observing the results of some perfectly set up trick.

 

 

Hands clasped behind his back in diplomatic meetings, face a calm mask, twiddling his fingers, running his thumb along his palm.

 

Restless hands, his mother called them.

 

 

Pencils dancing along the edges of paper.

 

Glares during lessons.

 

 

Eyes moving, bouncing around _theyreGoingToComeOutOfYourHead_

 

Hungrily drinking in every detail of every room.

 

 

Always Moving.

 

Random objects picked up and put down -  picked up . . .

 

. . . Adjusted .

 

Put down.

 

_Twitchy_

 

Fixed. Adjusted. Picked up. Twisted. Thrown. Caught. Put down.

 

His room filled with the strangest of things, half of them enchanted.

 

Thor learned not to touch them.

 

 

Graceful arches and subtle twists of a wrist

 

_Thwack Thwack Thwack_

 

A throwing knife stuck in the wood, just above his head.

 

 

Fingers moving anxiously back and forth, back and forth.

 

 

Perched in strange positions on the edge of a chair, legs dangling at odd angles or sticking into the air.

 

Like a cat, Thor teased.

 

_Thwack!_

 

Movements that looked effortless,

 

Moving around like water, always shifting, changing,

 

Fidgeting,

 

Moving,

 

_Never still._

 

* * *

 

Thor stared at his brother.

 

Loki stared back.

 

Valkyrie huffed.

 

“I don’t know if you’re going to kiss or kill each other, but one of you needs to move so I can get at that booze”

 

Thor stared at Loki.

 

Loki twitched.

 

That was all.

 

Val tried to push Thor over the railing of the command deck.

 

Thor turned and shoved her off. He looked back to the empty space where Loki had been.

 

“Huh. Sneaky little freak.”

 

Thor glared at her.

 

* * *

 

“We need to talk.”

 

“Do we?” Loki was sitting at the desk in his room, holding a book. His feet were on the ground.

 

Thor stared at his brother.

 

Loki stared back. He did not move. Not even a twitch.

 

“Something is wrong”

 

“Ah. The ever-observant Thor. Thank you, without your gracious observation I never would have noticed th-”

 

“-Loki-”

“-THAT WE ARE HURTLING Through space with no plan or direction, flying away from our homeland turned to ash, in a ship full of widows and children with a dwindling food SupplyAndNoFoodWhatDoYouMean something is wrong of course it is, _everything_ is fucking-”

 

_“Loki”_

 

Loki huffed. Thor continued. He wondered if he would have noticed the obvious before.

 

“You cannot distract me. Something is wrong, I know it. You would not be so defensive, so quick to anger otherwise”

 

Loki was staring very intensely at Thor’s shoulder.

 

“Please,” Thor said “You are right. Everything is wrong, and I am king and would do better with an advisor, a brother, who I know can communicate effectively so we can address any issues before they become. . . significant”

 

“How eloquent.” Thor did not miss Loki’s flinch near the end.

 

“While I appreciate the sentiment” Loki continued, actually looking at Thor now “There is nothing wrong. At least, not more than what I have already told you and what should be apparent” he paused, and looked away, then back again “I know you do not exactly have reason to trust-”

 

“- you came back-”

 

Loki’s gaze turned sharp. “Yes. I did. And a million other things besides. Now let me finish”

 

Thor nearly bit his tongue.

 

“I know you still, despite recent events, do not have reason to trust me completely. But I mean to be here and help our people to the best of my ability, and I am not lying when I say that there is nothing wrong. I do not, as of now, harbor any secret grudge or hurt to hold against you, and I do not intend to. If such an issue arises that I feel is not adequately dealt with, I will let you know in a timely manner, so that it does not become ‘significant’”

 

The corner of Loki’s mouth tilted up at the echo of Thor’s awkward phrasing.   

 

“Does that satisfy you?”

 

Thor looked at Loki. Loki stared back.

 

There was something, Thor knew, that he was not saying. Then again, there was almost always something Loki was not saying, often many things, but given the circumstances it would be safe to believe that his brother was telling the truth. There was nothing untold which would cause a significant incident. Maybe even nothing Loki was particularly upset about, at least not something to do with Thor.

 

But Thor was not as unobservant as he knew he once had been, and he knew, without a speck of doubt, that there was something wrong, and that while Loki was almost surely not lying, his brother’s careful phrasing had avoided guarantee that there was no issue. Merely no issue that would cause problems or concern Thor.

 

The absence stretched long.

 

Loki kept staring at him. Thor did not respond.

 

Pushing for answers, as always, would only cause Loki to retreat further into convoluted technically truths. For once, Thor did not hold it against him.

 

But during the entire conversation, despite his brothers fumble for words, despite the undercurrent of discomfort, despite the humid sticky warmth that permeated every corner of the ship being almost worse in this room, Loki had not moved.

 

He had moved his mouth to speak, and flinched once. He breathed. Yet for the first time in as long as Thor could remember, his brother spoke, and was absolutely, terrifyingly still.

 

He sat on a chair, a perfect, small, perch worthy chair, with both feet firmly on the ground. He was not twisting his hair when first reading as Thor came in. There were never any musical taps against a thigh, nor fingers trailed along the worn spine of a book. His hands stayed decidedly separate, and perfectly still.

 

Something was very wrong.

 

This had been going on for days, since they had left Sakaar on the Commodore, but in the ensuing scramble, and the peoples’ anxiety, and meeting after meeting after meeting, Thor had not had a chance to pin down exactly what he knew to be off about his brother.

 

Maybe it’s just nerves, he wondered. Maybe its sadness, everyone is mourning.

 

But if anything, that trail of thought made Thor more concerned, because Loki always moved, but he moved all the more when anxious, upset or thinking. And here Loki was, practically admitting to being overwhelmed and anxious about their current predicament, and he was as still as a rock.

 

Something was wrong, and Loki would not tell him. Thor did not know how to ask.

 

He sighed.

 

Hopefully Loki would come around, maybe he would grow more comfortable with time and maybe they could begin to voice so many things left unsaid.

 

“Yes,” Thor conceded (you’re not the only one who is not entirely truthful brother) “It does.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Also the prompt that I'm not really filling is from portraitoftheoddity on Tumblr, and they have amazing fic too. This work was inspired by Lise's work for that prompt, because I cant stop thinking about the fact that Thor didn't really spend time with Loki since the Avengers. I'm assuming (as I think the movie implies) he never really visited him in the cell, then there was a great escape and chaos and "death". Then Ragnarok was even weirder, no time to bond. 
> 
> So although Loki would have had time when posing as Odin to maybe sort through some of what happened in the Void, some of it, like deliberate training to stay still and absolutely never fidget, would stick around. Especially considering Asgardian lifespans, so 4 years is nothing. 
> 
> So now they're on a ship and Thor actually spends a significant amount of time with Loki and there are no imminent threats of death. So he's going to notice some things he did not before, or he did a little but not enough and there wasn't time to talk.
> 
> \-----
> 
> Please review to feed the writing gremlin. She's anxious. Her name is Gertrude and she lives under my bed.


End file.
